dont understand fishless cycle

[Sky042]

Have you read the descriptive article on fishless cycling?

As far as ammonia sources.
If you live in the USA you can get the proper ammonia from wal-mart for about 97 cents.
looks like this

 

[Sky042]

Biospira has been discontinued in my market (NE Ohio). The guy at the LFS said that Marine Land is going to re-introduce it in the "future." Weird. Anyways, I am using pure ammonia from the grocery store for my fishless cycle. Make sure it is PURE ammonia with no colorants, surfacants (spelling?), dyes, perfumes, etc. If the ingredients say "ammonium hydrodixe" and that only, you should be fine. Mine actually says "water and ammonium hydroxide" which I am assuming means that it is simply diluted. Oh, and in conjunction with the ammonia, I add the "bacteria in a bottle" stuff.. I don't know if it works, but maybe, just maybe it will make the cycle go faster. Hope this helps!

Mike

You could also do what I've done in the past and just clean your filter into the tanks.

when cycling my 125 I took media from my Fluval 304 and cleaned it into my 125 tank. The water turned opaque green for a while but cleared in about 4-6 hours. The cycle is now comming along nicely.

When I cycled my 54 I used a cartridge from my emperor 280.

 

[Teelie]

As far as ammonia sources.
If you live in the USA you can get the proper ammonia from wal-mart for about 97 cents.

That's the stuff I used on one of my 30gallons. Worked out quite well.

 

[Fish 'R' Fun]

Pure ammonia is avaliable from anywhere /you could even buy hagen cycle from your local aquatic store

 

[Sky042]

Pure ammonia is avaliable from anywhere /you could even buy hagen cycle from your local aquatic store

Though cycle isn't ammonia and generally speaking is regarded as not actually working or doing anything.

 

[Fish 'R' Fun]

Cycles are easier if you do a fishless cycle and there are many brads for you to chose. If you go to your LFS or stores on the internet you will see the wide varieties of fishless cycling

 

[dwarfgourami]

Cycling products are not supposed to be as effective. Pure household ammonia is the stuff. I have never seen it in a fish shop, mind, you'd go to your local hardware store for that sort of thing. In the US I believe it's Walmarts, in the UK some Boots stores do it but I found mine in a small hardware shop, the kind that has 50 different screws next to the teacosies. My product was called AmoKleen but it doesn't matter what the name is as long as it says on the bottle that it only contains ammonia and water. Anything else (perfume, surfactants) is bad news.

I added drops through a pipette to get a reading of about 5 ppm, then kept adding the same amount every day until ammonia went down and nitrites went up. Then I added half the amount every day until the nitrites went down and the nitrates spiked. Then I did 40% water change and added fish. The whole process took 10 days on one tank and a fortnight on the other. Good stuff!

 

[Jo and Gra]

i just added fish food to the tank......

that breaks down and gives off ammonia..

 

[sylvia]

Can I just say that, actualy, you DO have to do a water change once the cycle is complete. You see, you'll have 0 ammonia/nitrItes but your nitrAtes will be incredibly high. During the cycle you need not do anything but, just before you add the fish, do a 90% water change to bring nitrAtes down to a safer level (prefferably under 20ppm).

 

[dwarfgourami]

Sorry, I must have missed the first post- did anyone say you didn't have to do a water change after fishless cycle? Never heard that one before. I certainly did one, (come to think of it, I think it was a lot more than 40% I did, more like 70), the idea is that you get rid of most of the nitrate-ridden water but keep the useful bacteria in the gravel+filter.
If this does not bring your tank water down to 20 ppm, it may be because your tap water is already high in nitrates (mine is closer to 40), in that case you will just have to live with it.